


Feeling Feelings

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Cabin Fic, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e10 Beneath the Surface, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel talks about stuff. Jack doesn’t. And yet, Daniel makes Jack talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feeling Feelings

There’s a second between sleeping and waking when Jack thinks he’s Jonah. He expects the bedding to be rough beneath his fingers and the air to carry the pungent smell of oil from the machines and soot from the fires. But the sheet is soft and the air is clear, and he’s not Jonah.

He breathes out, slowly and deeply, orienting himself fully before easing quietly out of bed and making his way to the bathroom. He pees, splashes cold water on his face and feels like himself again. He checks in the mirror, just to be sure. He’s sees colonel, not slave, but still, that single moment when he feels and thinks like Jonah is unsettling and too real and is happening every time he wakes up.

Ironic. _This_ is real. _Minnesota_ is real. Jonah isn’t.

The cabin is warm; the fire has burned all night. He switches on the lamp in the corner of the small living room and it casts a soft light. Dawn is still some time away.

He sits in the old chair that was his grandfather’s – no one was allowed to sit it in it when grandpa was around. He can feel him in the indentation in the cushion and in the worn, smooth edges of the wooden arms, where he used to run his hands, over and over, as he sat and told Jack stories of his childhood on the lake. Jack runs his hands over the wood in the same, time-honored way and the motion anchors him. He’s always more himself here than anywhere.

“You okay?”

The voice startles him. For a second, he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone here. He’s so used to being alone here.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Daniel stands uncertainly by the door, hair mussed, blinking into the dim light. “You didn’t. It’s too quiet.”

Only Daniel. People come to cabins in woods for the peace, the isolation. It’s _going_ to be quiet.

“Better than too noisy,” Jack shoots back, mildly annoyed for reasons he’s unsure of.

Daniel plonks himself down on the sofa opposite Jack. He looks reassuringly Daniel-like – slightly distracted, vaguely bemused. He’s wearing what seem to be his oldest pyjamas, the cotton fraying at the edges. He doesn’t look like Carlin. “I like noise. Okay, I like _some_ noise when I’m trying to sleep. I’m too used to city living.” He yawns and scratches his armpit. He looks so damned young. Jack half expects him to ask for a glass of milk and a cookie. “There’s no sound here except for your fucking snoring.”

“Sara always said I sounded like a demented buzz saw.”

Daniel quirks a smile. “She was right.”

“Sorry,” Jack says.

Daniel’s looking at him as though he’s never heard the word. “For what?”

_Fighting with you back on the planet, not remembering our friendship, the whole Jonah and Thera dance. Perm any two from three._

“Keeping you awake with my snoring.”

“Like I said, you didn’t. The snoring was welcome relief from the aforementioned overwhelming silence,” Daniel offers, yawning again.

Jack reaches for his grandmother’s crocheted blanket that’s lying on the floor beside his chair and throws it across to Daniel. “Wrap up. You’ll get cold.”

Daniel kind of tuts but wraps it around his shoulders anyway, tucking his feet under his legs as he does so. Jack envies that flexibility. His knees have a lot to answer for.

They sit in silence for a while, both watching the flames dancing gracefully in the grate.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Jack says, eventually, his voice a shock even to him in the deep quiet of pre-dawn.

Daniel looks at him, his steady blue gaze somehow more piercing in the low light. “I knew you wouldn’t ask Sam, and Teal’c has turned you down as often as I have. I also knew you’d come here whether I came or not and I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to be on your own.”

“Afraid I’d forget who I am?” It comes out way snarkier then he intends. Fuck.

“Afraid that you’d be _afraid_ you’d forget.”

Jack shakes his head. “I can take care of myself.”

Daniel throws him a look that says, “Of course you can,” which actually means the opposite. It’s the way they talk sometimes. “Look, this whole mind stamp thing is fucking with _my_ head, and I can only imagine what it’s doing to someone so used to being in control, in charge, so rigidly disciplined in their  thinking and actions. Being afraid of losing who you are, losing your mind is ... a terrible thing.” He frowns and looks away.

Jack taps the worn wood beneath his fingers, the way his grandfather did when agitated. “The voice of experience,” he says, dully.

“Admittedly not experiences I like to dwell on but it’s hard to forget the helplessness, though god knows I’ve tried.” He speaks levelly, almost dispassionately but Jack knows him and the hurt is there.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” he says, wanting Daniel to know. “I never said that, either with Shyla or the Linvris thing.”

Daniel shudders but tries to hide it by shifting and pulling the blanket more tightly around him. “Well, I never thought you actively wanted me to go through that crap. So ...”

Jack clasps his hands together and leans forward in the chair. “It’s that ... millisecond ... when I wake and just for that instant I’m not sure. I can feel his thoughts and feelings weaving their way through my brain, waiting to ambush me.”

“Jonah is not you,” Daniel says, with a certain finality.

“Isn’t he? There must have been something of him in me. Something visceral, something on a cellular level that made me accept the status quo and not question who I really was.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself.” Daniel isn’t dismissive and he never offers platitudes, so he must believe it. Daniel is nothing if not honest.

 “But you questioned it,” Jack says. “From the beginning. You had dreams, and not ones that involved naked mining I might add.”

Daniel shrugs. “It’s my job to question things. It’s your job to follow orders, not to question. You were being more true to yourself than you realize.”

“I was attracted to Carter.” He says it quickly, wanting the words out. It’s bugging him.

Daniel blinks.  “It was Jonah who was attracted to Thera.”

“But Thera is Carter and vice-versa.”

“But we’ve established that we’re not them,” Daniel says, with excessive patience.

“We really haven’t, Daniel. There had to be some overspill for the fucking stamp to work. Surely.” Jack catches Daniel’s eye, certain that the “Don’t call me Surely” crack is about to issue forth as it usually does. It doesn’t.  Jack sighs. “So, the fact it was Jonah and Thera makes it okay, then?”

Daniel thinks about that for a second. “It makes it a thing. Things happen.”

Jack purses his lips. “I don’t know. It seems an easy out – that it was them, not us.”

“What exactly did you say to Sam back there?” Daniel leans further back into the sofa cushions. He looks comfortable there, like he belongs in this old place with its history and memories. In a curious way, he does. Daniel is all about history and memories. He fits.

“That I remembered feeling feelings.” He shuffles in his chair. It sounds ... ridiculous.

“For her.”

“Yes.”

Daniel nods and gets that abstracted look. It’s cute and aggravating at the same time. It’s very Daniel.

“And you do have feelings for her?”

“I care about her, Daniel. Probably a lot more than I should.”

“I heard.” Daniel’s voice is edged with something Jack can’t quite quantify.

_Oh. He heard._

“Do you care about me? Do you care about Teal’c?”

“Yes.”

“More than you should?”

Jack shakes his head and raises his eyes to the ceiling. “That’s more of an ‘out’ than Jonah and Thera.”

“I need coffee. I’m going to make some.” And Daniel gets up and heads for the kitchen. And that appears to be that, for now.

Jack listens as Daniel futzes with the coffee maker, runs the water and rinses mugs, and wonders again why he really invited Daniel here and why he really said yes. Nothing is ever easy between them and life is complicated enough. Being here alone suddenly seems very appealing. Early-hours conversations rarely solve anything and yet it was inevitable that this is what would happen. Daniel talks about stuff. Jack doesn’t. And yet, Daniel makes Jack talk.

A few minutes pass and it goes quiet in the kitchen. Curious, Jack pads quietly into the room.

Daniel is standing with his back to Jack, arms braced, looking out of the window over the kitchen sink. He’s motionless, silent. Jack leans against the doorjamb and watches him. The only light comes from the adjoining living room. It gives the tableau a surreal quality.

Daniel is in his kitchen at his cabin. And it looks right. Some part of Jack always knew it would.

Eventually, after who knows how long, Daniel’s soft voice breaks the silence.

“Do you love Sam?”

Jack is struck mute. Daniel knows all about DADT. It applies when in cabins in rural Minnesota every bit as much as in top-secret military facilities.

“Come on Jack, it’s a reasonable enough question.” His voice is wavering slightly. Nerves? Anger? Jack can’t tell.

“You can’t ask me that,” Jack says, levelly.

“Oh, I think I can,” Daniel says, and a laugh that sounds suspiciously self-mocking escapes his lips. “And I really, _really_ need to know.”

In the soft light, the cords in Daniel’s forearms tighten, his neck tenses but still he doesn’t turn around. “You weren’t the only one to remember feeling feelings,” he says. He sounds defeated, as though he’s lost the battle and said the words despite himself.

Jack is stunned. It takes a full minute for what Daniel has said to compute.

Wow. He didn’t see this coming.

“You love Carter?”

And now Daniel does turn around.

“No! No, not ... Sam.”

Jack shakes his head. This conversation is so not going how he envisioned. “Then ... who?”

Daniel reaches for his mug and starts to fill it with coffee. His hands are shaking. _Huh._ He doesn’t take a drink, simply swirls the contents round and round, eyes fixed on the churning liquid. “I came here because I thought that if I said something, you’d be in a better place to respond. You’re Jack here, not the Colonel.” Now he does take a long drink. “I thought you’d have the space to think.”

Now Jack is completely lost. “About what?” he almost yells.

Daniel answers at a similar volume. “Carlin wanted Jonah. And that’s when I realized that I wanted you. Daniel wanted Jack. _I_ wanted _you_.”

Jack stares at Daniel in the dim light.

“Daniel wanted ...”

“Yes.”

“You wanted ...”

“Yes, Jack. Yes.” The final yes a resigned sigh.

Jack takes the coffee mug from Daniel’s trembling hands and drains it in one huge gulp.

“That is definitely off the More Than One Should Scale,” Jack says, eventually. This is screwing with his mind, and it’s not as if it hasn’t been screwed with enough lately.

“Defcon one,” Daniel says, looking touchingly vulnerable and in need of reassurance.

Jack bangs his head lightly against the wooden door frame. “I thought this was my angst we were wrestling with here,” he says, plaintively.

 “Well, newsflash, Jack, you don’t hold the monopoly on angst.”

Jack walks around the kitchen counter and adds more coffee to the mug. His arm brushes against Daniel’s as he does so and it sends a jolt through his body. They’ve touched before so many times and he’s never felt that. Why now?

Because it’s out there.  Because Daniel has put himself out there. And Jack is leaving him hanging.

 “What do you want me to say, Daniel?”  He asks the question softly and purposefully doesn’t move away.

“I just  ...  I’m hoping you invited me here for more than angst-ridden conversation. I was hoping that me being here in this place where you can be yourself, where you feel connected and grounded would make you see what I want you to see.”

Jack nods. He needs to give Daniel something but he doesn’t know what to say.

“I’ve felt like this for awhile now. I hope you feel the same. I’ve been picking up signals but I’ve also seen how things have been with Sam.”

Daniel turns towards Jack and raises his hand to cup Jack’s face. His fingers are still trembling. On instinct, Jack raises his own to cover Daniel’s. He squeezes gently. He sees the reassuring gesture register and the relief that floods Daniel’s body is tangible.

“I’m just going to say this, Jack, and then how you respond ... I’ll live with whatever you decide to do. I hope we’ll still be friends.”

Daniel’s thumb strokes Jack cheek. Inside his head, Jack hears the scrape of two-day beard. It sounds unfeasibly loud.

“I don’t know when, exactly, I felt more than friendship. I don’t know how I let myself fall. I’m not sure I understand it, but, oh god, Jack, it’s real. If P3R-118 has taught me anything, it’s that.”

Jack searches Daniel’s face and sees only truth in his eyes. Only anxiety written in the frown that is deepening by the second. Before Jack can say anything, Daniel is speaking again.

“I don’t know if you can return my feelings. I don’t know if you’ve ever had feelings for men. I just know that I had to tell you.”

Jack swallows hard, His mouth is dry. He’s being forced to face feelings he’s buried so deep he  doesn’t know if he can mine those depths any more, but this Daniel. _Daniel._ And he’s always loved him in every way that matters.

“I don’t ...” He can’t speak. He can’t begin to tear down those barriers that have helped him survive it the military so long and have allowed his team to function and be the best fucking team it can be. There’s so much at stake here.

Daniel closes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says, on a whisper. “Really, Jack. It’s okay.”

“No,” Jack says, quickly, “No. You don’t get it. I want it, Daniel. I do. I just ... need to think.” He raises his other hand and cups Daniel’s face. His skin is surprisingly soft and warm. The mere touch of it does things to him that he hasn’t felt in years. _Years._ But this is Daniel.

Daniel’s eyes are still closed, his body tense, but slowly, so slowly, he pulls away. He opens his eyes and Jack reads honesty and something that looks a lot like love.

Daniel turns his head towards the window. “It’s dawn.” He looks back at Jack. “We need to sleep. I’d like it if we could sleep together. Just sleep. Friends sleep together sometimes, so that’s okay. It’s okay if you don’t want to. I’ll leave the door open.”

He walks towards the spare room, feet treading softly on the floor.

Jack recognizes what he’s feeling now. It’s the same feeling he had a split second before a parachute jump. He’s balanced dizzyingly on the edge of the unknown.

If he turns left out of the kitchen, he’s sleeping alone and everything is known. If he turns right, everything changes.

He takes a deep breath and looks around. _Daniel fits._

He starts walking.

ends


End file.
